RTG Carrera Italia Daily Dispatch - All days - low res - Flipbook - Page 13
Day 5: Dolomites loop, 7 October 2021
For the organising team it was all hands on deck to man
the various controls and timing points. As we have the
luxury of a second night in the same hotel Chris Mills and
Worth Birkill, the baggage van crew, might have expected
a day off. Instead they were simply redeployed, finding
themselves atop a windy mountain with a stopwatch,
clipboard and barely a moment to admire the views as the
cars roared up towards them one after another.
The day kicked off with a Regularity up to the Passo
Cibiana at whose summit we began to get a glimpse of
exactly what we’d be dealing with later on in the morning.
As the sun rose, and the clouds lifted, the magnificence of
where we were began to hit home. At the following Time
Control, in the Rifugio Remauro, the excitement built as
more of the impressive mountains revealed themselves.
An easy run down the Val di Zoldo took the crews to
a Regularity over the Passo Duran. But this was merely a
support act for the day’s headline performance soon to
take place over the mighty Passo Pordoi and the Passo Sella.
Some snow had already fallen and the wind was bitter, but
the views seemed to get better with every hairpin.
With an amphitheatre of rock filling our rear view mirrors
and a seemingly endless ribbon of tarmac rushing past the
windscreen this had been an incredible morning’s rallying
by any standards. As the crews arrived at the MTC in the
delightful Chalet Gerard for lunch there was a distinct
party atmosphere.
Of course this wasn’t the end of the day, the rally still
had some 50km of fabulous roads to negotiate to get back
to the night halt, but this could be tackled at a pace to suit
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